Sam Davidson's blog

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#004: You Get the Behavior You Reward

I got to listen to Simon Sinek on a panel at a conference last month. The group was discussing purpose in business and while there were a lot of insights and wisdom to digest, Sinek's comments stuck with me:

"You get the behavior you reward," he said in response to a question asked about how to infuse purpose at every level of a company.

Ever since then, I've been asking myself what I'm incentivizing my team to do to Batch. I'm also asking how I parent. Or what I want to encourage in my friends.

Rewards are a powerful thing, but they can't be the only thing. Eventually, I think you can embed purpose so deeply in people, be they colleagues, investors, an audience, or a family. Then, fulfilling a collective destiny can be its own reward.

There aren't enough carrots in the world to keep people continually motivated. You've got to teach them the joy that comes with being able to satisfy their own hunger for greatness.